


a sort of picture perfect ending

by awaywego



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Babies, Domestic Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 08:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9876542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awaywego/pseuds/awaywego
Summary: Amy and Rory move to Surrey. The hospital in Leadworth downsizes and given Rory’s patchy attendance record, he’s one of the first given redundancy. He walks into a nursing job there, aided by references from a mysterious ‘doctor’. Amy finds she doesn’t really know what to do with herself. Some days she wanders around their house, from room to silent room, looking for something to do. She imagines the spare bedroom, painted yellow with a frieze of stars, and a cot in one corner for her Melody.It's peaceful, being normal. But you're never really normal when the Doctor's touched your life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago when I had a lot of feelings at the end of season six, and found it the other week so I thought I'd post. Thoroughly jossed.

Amy and Rory move to Surrey. The hospital in Leadworth downsizes and given Rory’s patchy attendance record, he’s one of the first given redundancy. He walks into a nursing job there, aided by references from a mysterious ‘doctor’. Amy finds she doesn’t really know what to do with herself. Some days she wanders around their house, from room to silent room, looking for something to do. She imagines the spare bedroom, painted yellow with a frieze of stars, and a cot in one corner for her Melody.

 

Her Melody who she’ll never hold in her arms again. She knows that Melody grows up to be spectacular, but it’s not enough, is it?

 

One afternoon, sitting in their garden with a pot of tea and a sketchbook, she begins drawing. Silly cartoons at first, that turn into stories, about good conquering evil, faith triumphing over nihilism, girls kicking butt. Her heroine, a spunky Scottish eight-year-old called Mels with black hair and brown skin and a smile that could make villains fall to their knees and beg for mercy, steals a time machine and takes off into the stars. She draws from her own experiences. In one story, Mels battles a minotaur in space, in another she teams up with a beaky-nosed boy called William and takes on the Roman empire.

 

Rory reads the first story when she’s completely finished. His smile widens as he reads but there are tears in his eyes when he hands it back to her. “I miss her.”

 

She wraps an arm around his shoulder. “I miss them both.”

 

Without any real thought to their success, she sends a collection of stories, along with several illustrations, to a publisher in London. What she doesn’t expect is such an immediate response. Sally Sparrow, children’s book editor, calls her two weeks later. “Amelia Pond, I want to publish your stories.”

 

Amy thinks she might cry.

 

She dedicates her first book to ‘River Song, the Doctor and, most of all, the Last Centurion’.

 

For some reason, she becomes a bit of a celebrity for a while. Rory tells her it’s because she’s wonderfully beautiful and talented, but Amy suspects it’s all a bit of luck and a lot of good publicity.

 

She takes advantage of it though. She has a Mels action figure, a movie in the works. Apparently, Michael Gambon is in talks to play Mels’ wise yet silly mentor. Occasionally, children recognise her from the author photo on the back of her books and ask for her autograph. They ask her if they can play Mels in the movie.

 

She even gets asked to model for a perfume line, and she agrees because the perfume is called ‘Petrichor’. She suggests the tagline. It becomes a huge hit. She always wanted to be a model, years of watching _America’s Next Top Model_ and placing bets with Mels and Rory on who will win, thinking that she could do that. Thought the closest she’d get was Kissogram.

 

*

 

So the doctor isn’t dead after all, but he is her son-in-law, an utterly bizarre concept. He’s finally her family though, as he always should have been.

 

She’s pregnant again. She and Rory decided it was time. She writes and draws from home, has completed the perfume campaign and the publicity tour for her second book, and has painted one of the guest bedrooms TARDIS blue and has stencilled a raggedy man and his companions on one wall. She shows River the room, baby kicking against her stomach, and River bursts into tears, great wracking sobs as she buries her head in Amy’s shoulder.

 

River visits regularly. She fills a strange position in Amy’s life, at once daughter, mentor and best girlfriend.

 

She wishes that the Doctor would visit.

 

River tells her not to worry. He’s keeping his head down. He visits River though, of course. She says that he thinks of them always. Occasionally, Amy finds gifts in their letterbox, flowers from distant planets, an old quill accompanied by a note that inferred it had been stolen from the desk of Jane Austen and once, a scribbled drawing on a scrap of paper signed by Picasso. She’s not sure whether to be pleased or insulted when she realises that it’s meant to be a picture of her.

 

“Tell that husband of yours,” she says to River, one evening over tea and store bought biscuits, “that I don’t want his gifts. I just want to see his stupid face and know that he’s alright.”

 

“Soon,” River says. “You’ll see him soon.”

 

“He’s going to turn up while I’m in labour, isn’t he?” Amy says, sighing. “And he’ll tell me that I’ve got fat and ask me why I’m making such unpleasant noises. And then he’ll christen the baby ‘Doctor’.”

 

“That sounds like him,” Rory says, coming into the living room with a fresh pot of tea.

 

*

 

At six months, she bumps into a couple and their little boy in the children’s section of their local bookshop. Amy is buying picture books for their ever growing collection on little Pond’s shelf at home. The man looks at her, recognition blossoming in his eyes. “Amelia Pond.”

 

No one has called her Amelia Pond in such a long time and she feels a strange tug in her stomach. “Do I know you?”

 

“I’m Craig, the doctor’s old flatmate.”

 

Craig’s larger than she expected. For some reason, she always imagined Rory, possibly because it is intrinsically hilarious to consider the doctor and Rory sharing a flat, arguing over whose dishes are in the sink and who has been using up all their internet torrenting episodes of _The Wire_. His partner, Sophie, has a wide smile and tugs their child away from a train set to say hello.

 

“Is the doctor still around?” Craig asks.  

 

“Yes,” Amy says. “But he’s lying low. I haven’t seen him.”

 

Craig’s whole face sags in relief. “He told me he was dying.” They exchange phone numbers and arrange to catch up. Amy thinks that he and Rory will get on really well.

 

*

 

At eight months she gets a fan letter from a boy called Clyde Langer.

_Dear Ms Pond,_ it reads.

_I know I’m not a child, but I read one of your books recently to my little cousin and was so moved by the stories. They feel very real. I’m at university, studying design and your pictures remind me of stuff that I used to draw. Still do, I guess, in my spare time._

_I loaned your book to my best friends, Luke and Rani. I know they’ll love your stories as much as I did._

_Sincerely,_

_Clyde Langer_

 

For some reason the names are familiar to her. She wonders if Clyde Langer is one of thousands whose life was touched by the doctor. Sally, her publisher, is one of them, discovered when she suggested that the time machine be shaped like a police box from the 1960s. A temp doctor, Martha Jones, worked with Rory for a week and saved the hospital from an alien virus. At a book festival, Amy meets an author whose grandmother met the doctor.

 

*

 

The doctor doesn’t appear when Amy’s in labour and she finds that she’s almost disappointed. But how can she be when this little miracle is in her arms, safe and sound. No one’s taking Juliet Pond away from her.

 

Rory’s face when he sees their little girl for the first time is beautiful. He holds her close to his chest, whispering nonsense to her, about her mother who fought pirates and sirens and vampires and gangers to save him and her big sister who stopped time itself for the man she loved.

 

Amy figures that since River was born hearing fairy tales about the Last Centurion, it’s only fair that their second child hears the mythology of the Girl Who Waited.

 

*

 

River drops in a few months later and she has someone with her. It’s the doctor. He looks older than Amy’s ever seen him but he also looks happy. He stills wears that ridiculous bow tie. He hugs Amy, squashing Juliet between them. Juliet squawks and the doctor tells her to stop complaining.

 

Amy gives Juliet to her big sister, who looks like she doesn’t quite know what to do with something so small. Juliet grabs one of River’s curls and pulls hard.

 

“How are you, Pond?” the doctor says. “I must say, I’m very disappointed you didn’t name the child after me.”

 

“I looked it up,” Amy said. “Did you know that it’s fraudulent to call yourself a doctor if you aren’t one?”

 

“Is that an accusation?” the doctor asks. “Roranicus Pondicus.” He and Rory hug.

 

“Are you no longer lying low?” Amy asks.

 

The doctor shakes his head. “I’ve stopped running. Silence hasn’t fallen yet.”

 

“You talk too much for silence to fall,” Rory jokes.

 

The doctor looks over at River holding the baby. There’s a sort of softness in his eyes, although whether that’s because of River or the baby Amy’s not sure. “My God, Pond. That is a very ginger child.”

 

“Oi,” Amy says, slapping his arm. “Nothing wrong with that.”

 

“Of course not,” the doctor says. “Always wanted to be ginger. I’m disappointed every time I regenerate.” He tugs his hair regretfully.

 

“Do you know what we need to do?” Rory says. “Family photo.”

 

Amy laughs and the doctor protests and River whines that the baby has messed up her hair but Rory grabs the digital camera, forces them all onto the sofa and sets the timer. River lounges against the doctor, giving Amy back Juliet who looks thoroughly unimpressed to see her mother with her ordinary, straight hair again. Rory squeezes in next to Amy, draping an arm around her shoulder. Juliet grizzles, about to cry.

 

Just as the camera flashes, the doctor pulls the most ridiculous face, whole mouth contorting. Juliet gurgles with laughter, Rory snorts. Amy and River exchange glances, both grinning widely, both rolling their eyes.

 

And Amy knows that no matter what, a perfect moment has been captured. The photo will be blown up and framed and placed next to Juliet’s cot so that when Amy tells Juliet stories about the Raggedy Man and the Last Centurion and the Impossible Astronaut and the Girl Who Waited Juliet will be there and she will know these people and how much the loved her.


End file.
